


Work Is The Only Reality

by corngold



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: All of the Travises!, Blake and Gan are besties, Blake the Manager doesn't do much managing, Both Blake and Avon have made bad dating choices in their lives, DepartmentStore!AU, M/M, Mundane!AU, Obligatory Christmas gift swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 05:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2139033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corngold/pseuds/corngold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boucher's Department Store: home of the most dysfunctional staff the galaxy has ever known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Work Is The Only Reality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aralias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/gifts).



> A very silly fic started for one of [aralias](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias)'s prompts in February's [Blakefest](http://blakefest.dreamwidth.org/), but not finished in time. It's still missing a bit of necessary stuff, but I haven't had inspiration strike since, so I'm posting as is.

Avon wasn't the kind of man Blake would have expected to apply for a job in this field, but the greater question, once he'd been hired, was what to do with him. Avon was not what one might call a 'people person,' which made fitting him into a customer-facing job difficult. Finally Blake assigned him to the checkout counter, under the theory that customers who'd gone through the trouble of shopping and standing in line to pay were less likely to be driven out of the store by his personality than the customers still browsing the aisles.

Blake had tried to set him up as a bagger, and thereby minimise the amount of actual interaction between Avon and their customers as much as he could, but it hadn't worked. Avon had refused to do something he deemed 'menial,' and when Blake had insisted, and left him for five minutes to help Gan with a troublesome customer, he'd returned to find Avon bullying Vila into switching places. When Blake dragged Vila aside and confronted him about it, Vila just shrugged and said, "Have you met him? He makes Travis One look like a teddy bear."

So Blake had given in, and had spent the next half hour hovering behind Avon's shoulder, until eventually he had to admit Avon seemed to know what he was doing.

"It isn't difficult, Blake, you scan the items through, accept payment, send them on their way, and start again from the beginning. Hardly the most stimulating job in the world, but nothing I can't handle."

"All right," Blake had answered, and glanced up as the sliding doors opened to admit Servalan. She caught his eye, and Blake set a hand on Avon's shoulder and murmured, "Excuse me a minute. Vila, give him any help he needs."

"It's that button there," Blake hear Vila say, just on the edge of overly-helpful.

"The day I need assistance opening and closing a till, Vila…" 

Avon's voice faded away as Blake followed Servalan down the aisle between the intimates and the cosmetics, and into the break room. 

"And how's the new boy settling in?" she asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"He's a bit lacking in the social niceties," Blake admitted. "I may have to switch him to put-backs."

" _Very_ easy on the eyes, though," she said, sipping thoughtfully. "He's _so_ much nicer to look at than Gan. And I'm just as happy not to have Vila handling the money. Leave him—what was his name again?"

"Avon."

"That's right, Avon. Leave Avon where he is."

"I have complete faith in Vila," Blake said, trying to keep his tone polite. Servalan's smirk told him he hadn't been completely successful. "And I'm floor manager, I'll arrange my staff as I see fit."

"Yes you are, Blake." She set her mug on the counter by the sink, and patted his chest briefly as she passed. "And I'm your boss. Leave Avon on the registers."

~*~

"I'm looking for something a little more...out there. If you know what I mean." 

Jenna gave the teenager her most professional smile, the one that meant she was trying very hard not to grab the nearest pair of shoes and hit him round the head with them. "What exactly did you have in mind?" she asked.

"Something with a bit of flash. And sparkle." 

Jenna raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. "Well. In that case, what about something like these?"

Blake couldn't see what she was pointing toward, but the teenager's eyes lit up.

"Yeah, perfect! Do you have them in black?"

"I'm afraid not, though we do have a pair in pink." 

Ah, Blake thought, they must be looking at the silver knee-high glitter boots. 

"Nah, pink's not really my colour, you know?" the teenager said as Blake walked past them. Jenna glanced up at him and rolled her eyes, and Blake smiled and shook his head.

~*~

"Everything quiet?" Blake asked, and ignored Travis's glare. 

"As a tomb."

"You should ask your brother to switch your posts every now and then," Blake said.

"Ask him yourself, see what he says." Travis straightened the leather biker's jacket he insisted on wearing every day, and then glared forcefully at a customer holding a cooking pan and pair of trousers who had strayed into the vicinity of the back exit. The customer looked alarmed and retreated hastily into the kitchen department.

Blake sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're only supposed to stop them if they actually attempt to make off with something," he pointed out. 

"Better stop them before they make an attempt," Travis sneered. "Where'd you end up putting the new guy, then?"

"He's on the front registers."

Travis snorted, and then glared again at the hapless shopper, who had reappeared from behind the dish towels. He caught Travis's eye and promptly scurried off in the direction of men's wear.

"It's as if she wants us to lose customers," Blake muttered, and left Travis to it.

~*~

Contrary to Blake's worries, Boucher's Department Store didn't nosedive into bankruptcy, and two weeks later it felt as though Avon had always been there. He and Vila bickered cheerfully, Servalan expressed delight at the added ornamental value she felt Avon brought, and Gan expressed relief at not being called to the registers as often. Jenna was amused by Avon, Cally and Dayna liked him, Del disliked him greatly, and Soolin and Deeta didn't care one way or another. Blake found himself spending more and more time at register two and chatting with Avon during slow spells. He was clever, with a sharp sense of humour, and while Blake didn't particularly agree with Servalan that Avon was good looking, his smile was breathtaking, and when they argued Avon's eyes shone in a way that made him very attractive indeed. The elder Travis, guarding the main entrance, took to glaring at Avon almost as often as his younger brother glared at the customers. 

"If you insist on making Travis One jealous, you'll only make your own job harder," Soolin pointed out one day. She lounged on one elbow, hair cascading over one shoulder in a river of pale gold, and drummed her fingers against the jewellery counter. 

"Travis is a lunatic," Blake said frankly, lounging against the counter from the other side and watching Travis and Avon argue over whether a tiny old woman had paid for each of the pair of socks in her shopping bag. "I don't really decide what—wait, what do you mean, 'if I _insist_ on making Travis jealous?'"

Soolin just looked at him.

"She probably means the way you're constantly flirting with Avon," Vila said as he passed by on his way to his afternoon break.

"I'm...not," Blake said foolishly.

"Yes, of course you're not," Soolin agreed with faux sympathy.

~*~

Two weeks later Blake realised everyone knew, including himself—and when he realised that, he didn't bother denying it any longer. To himself, that is, not to anyone else. Soolin was right, Blake's relationship with Travis was strained enough without encouraging the senior security guard's overly-invested, animosity-filled obsession with him. 

On the other hand, that was no reason to keep Blake from getting to know Avon better. Blake enjoyed debating, and Avon enjoyed disagreeing, and their resulting arguments were exhilarating. Though Blake got the impression that they agreed on more than Avon let on—or that they would, if Avon would _let_ them.

As much as he talked, however, Avon said little about his personal life. He'd been vague in his interviews on the subject of his past, and he betrayed nothing at all to his co-workers. Blake didn't want to press for personal information Avon wasn't willing to give—his life was his own business, and he'd open up or he wouldn't—but he couldn't deny he was interested in Avon's past, any more than he could deny he was interested in Avon.

He wasn't the only one curious about their latest hire.

"Maybe he's a runaway prince," Vila had suggested one day in the break room. "He's got a high enough opinion of himself, there must be some reason."

"Maybe he's a vampire," Soolin deadpanned.

"We see him every day, _during_ the day," Del said.

"In an artificially lit building, out of the sun," Jenna pointed out.

"He comes and goes, though, doesn't he?" Dayna laughed. "And I haven't caught sight of him huddled under an umbrella or wrapped in a cloak."

"Maybe really high-grade sunscreen," Vila mused.

"Be serious, Vila," Dayna said.

"I wasn't the one who started it!"

"Maybe he's a hit man."

"Working retail?"

"He could be undercover."

"Perhaps he's MI5."

"MI6!"

"KGB!"

"Maybe he's an alien?"

"Maybe he's from the future!"

Avon's arrival in the break room two minutes later put an end to the discussion, but not long after, Blake heard rumours that a betting pool had been started.

~*~

Christmas came and went, complete with holiday decorations, ghastly pop music, and the requisite after-hours party in the break room. Deeta brought a bottle of schnapps, Blake brought two bottles of inexpensive champagne, Cally brought her famous fruit punch and Servalan brought her latest toy-boy.

"Oh lord," Deeta joked when, they arrived. "It's Del's ex-boyfriend."

"Shut it, Deeta," Del muttered back, but he hurriedly knocked back a shot of schnapps and went to hide behind the Travis brothers. 

"Tarrant," the boyfriend said gravely, holding out a hand.

"Jarvik," Deeta answered, shaking it. 

"You work here?" Jarvik sounded incredulous.

"It's an honest day's work," Deeta answered airily. Blake shot him a quick look—that tone, from either Tarrant, usually meant a cutting remark was imminent—but Deeta just smiled blandly. 

Jarvik was nodding. "Fair enough," he pronounced. "And what do you do?"

"I man the back register and work cookware," Deeta said, with the air of someone delivering a punchline. Jarvik looked as though he'd stepped in something unpleasant.

" _Cookware_?" he repeated, with a snort. "You must take your complaint to the floor manager, Tarrant."

"He doesn't have a complaint," Blake put in, feeling mildly offended.

Jarvik scoffed. "He must!"

Deeta rested a hand on Blake's shoulder. "This is Roj Blake, our floor manager." 

Blake cleared his throat and tried to look pleasant, and wondered whether he could kick Deeta in the leg without drawing Jarvik's attention to it.

"The kitchen is a woman's province," Jarvik told Blake.

"Is he serious?" Soolin drawled on her way toward the champagne. 

"Del, on the other hand, heads the menswear department," Deeta continued. "I'm sure he'd love to tell you all about it. He's over there, chatting with Travis and Servalan."

"I haven't seen Del in many years. Have a pleasant evening, gentlemen." Jarvik left in a swirl of self-importance.

"Del's going to kill you for that," Blake pointed out. Deeta only grinned.

"Did you notice his cologne smelled rather of honeysuckle?" Soolin asked, reappearing with a glass of champagne in one hand and the bottle in the other. "I should ask him where he shops."

~*~

Dayna ended up going to Tarrant's rescue and somehow embroiling herself in a loud argument with Jarvik. Cally became tipsy and kissed Vila on the cheek. Servalan and Travis Minor vanished for twenty minutes and reappeared looking rumpled, Travis Major tried to corner Blake by the crisps, and Vila began juggling shot glasses while Gan, Del and Soolin watched and made bets on how many he'd be able to add before he dropped the lot. Deeta pulled his mobile from his jacket pocket, retreated to a quiet corner, and began texting.

Avon and Jenna spent forty-five minutes with their heads together, looking thick as thieves, until Cally interrupted them. She sat next to Jenna, leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek, and then turned bright red and stood again, saying she'd probably had too much to drink and had better catch the bus home. Jenna, looking amused, picked up her purse and keys and said she'd better go after Cally and offer to drive her.

Blake slid—casually, he hoped—into Jenna's spot, and chatted with Avon until Vila joined them with a bottle of vodka. Blake didn't remember much the next morning, around the pounding headache, but he had a vague feeling that he'd asked Avon something he'd very much wanted to know the answer to, but he couldn't remember the reply.

~*~

A gift exchange was customary between Boxing Day and New Year's, or, as Vila put it, during the brief moment between the holidays when they might be sober enough to think up gifts. They met by the cash registers after work on the evening of the twenty-seventh, each holding a slip of paper with their names. Jenna had offered Cally another ride home, and Vila teased them mercilessly between cracking yawns. The Travis brothers were late locking up, and Deeta glanced his at his watch every two minutes. 

"In a hurry for a hot date?" Dayna asked him, and Deeta flushed delicately pink.

The weather was fair and stars shone in the sky, and it was bitterly cold. Avon was huddled in a double breasted grey wool coat and wearing bright red scarf. It was an attractive ensemble, and Blake tore his eyes away from it with difficulty. Jenna handed him the plastic bowl they usually used for popcorn, which Blake held out for everyone's slips of paper, shook, and then passed round.

Some had better poker faces than others. Vila looked at the name he'd drawn and cackled. Cally's eyes flicked to Avon, and she looked thoughtful. Travis Major glared at Blake—no change from the usual—Travis Minor glanced at his paper, stuffed it into the pocket of his leather jacket—how did he keep from freezing? Blake wondered—and looked bored.

Blake picked last, glanced at his paper, and shoved it in his pocket, trying not to groan. "See you tomorrow morning, then," he said, and the group dispersed. 

~*~

He and Gan had a long-standing tradition of doing their holiday shopping together. 

"Who've you got, then?" Blake asked, ask Gan slid carefully into the passenger seat of Blake's tiny car that weekend.

"Jenna," Gan answered.

"Didn't you draw her last Christmas?"

"The one before that." Gan looked at him curiously. "You?"

"Travis."

"Oh dear. Which one?"

"The elder."

Gan's look of sympathy deepened, and he clapped Blake on the shoulder. "Sorry mate." 

~*~

"Any ideas, then?"

Blake replaced a model aeroplane on the shelf and glanced around. "Not really. He's an outdoors sort of man—or at least, he used to be."

"Hmm, hiking? Climbing?"

"Bit of everything." Blake eyed a garishly painted model train and shook his head. "I think we're in the wrong department."

"What about a headlamp?"

"No."

"Skis?" 

"No."

"Water skis."

"You're not helping."

"We'll get there eventually," Gan said, and grinned. "How about a map to buried treasure?"

"He's not a pirate."

"An eyepatch?"

Blake snorted. "What are you getting Jenna, then?"

"Hmm, something…DIY, I think. How about this?" He held up a book with _The Adventurer's Guide to Travel_ splashed across photos of The Eiffel Tower, Wat Chaiwatthanaram, the Taj Mahal and Yosemite Park. "It says on the back 'For those who want to travel the world on uncharted paths'—"

"Are they still uncharted if they're compiled in a book?" Blake asked, glancing over the biographies of various composers and wondering if Avon was at all interested in music.

"It doesn't look half-bad," Gan continued, flipping through the book and ignoring him. "Tips to avoiding the direct flights and booked hotels. There's a map of backpacking trails through Northern America…" He closed the book with a snap. "Just you, now." He glanced over Blake's shoulder. "Beethoven, really? I didn't peg Travis for a classical man."

Blake dropped the book hastily back on the shelf.

~*~

In the end he found a compass, which sported an apparently bombproof alloy case, a luminescent needle, and more bells and whistles than Blake would have known what to do with, tucked into a corner next to a set of board games. 

Travis had a compass already, Blake knew—or he _had_ , Blake couldn't speak to Travis's possessions now with any authority, nor did he want to—but it was a shoddy piece of work, with a dent in one side and a needle that was prone to falling off. If he hadn't already replaced it, Blake knew he had a good chance of having found something Travis would actually be pleased with.

He and Gan stopped for beans and chips and a pint, and then Blake dropped him at his flat and headed home.

"Servalan phoned," Deva called as soon as Blake walked through the door. Blake, halfway through pulling off his boots, groaned.

"What for?"

"You won't like it," his flatmate answered.

"I never do." 

Deva was in the cramped sitting room with a bottle of wine, three textbooks, and two notepads scattered around him. He glanced up as Blake paused in the doorway, and smiled wanly at him. "Phone back from your room, would you?" he asked, and waved a hand at the books. "I have an exam in the morning."

"I thought you found our rows entertaining?"

"Right now I need to find Rumsfeld and Sykes entertaining." He pushed his floppy hair absently out of his face and went back to scribbling on one of the notepads. "Do try to remember she's your boss, with the power to fire you."

"I didn't know you cared, Deva."

"I'm a starving student, Blake. I need your share of the rent," Deva answered absently.

"Thanks a lot."

"I'm only telling you to keep it in mind, for your own sake as well as mine."

"Don't worry," Blake answered, heading obligingly for his room. "I'm sure she'll remind me herself."

~*~

They exchanged gifts the next day after closing, and as usual, the gifts ranged from the thoughtful to the ridiculous. Jenna had bought Dayna the pair of sparkly pink knee high boots they'd been unable to shift, Del gave Vila a book of magic tricks, saying if Vila was going to play the fool, he might as well do it properly, and Deeta gave Travis Minor a truncheon, which made Travis's eyes light up and which Blake had to ban immediately from the premises. 

Dayna gave Gan a set of watercolour pencils, to the surprise of most of his co-workers, who'd had no idea he could draw. Gan blushed and looked pleased and asked how she'd found out. Dayna replied airily that she had her ways, and Gan and leaned over and cuffed Vila gently round the head.

Blake tried not to watch nervously as Travis Major unwrapped his gift, but it seemed he needn't have worried. Travis stared at the compass for a few moments, expression surprised, and then he looked up and said, tone astonishingly mild, "Thank you, Blake." Blake nodded wordlessly, while behind Travis's back, Vila pantomimed dying from shock.

Blake's gift was from Avon, which pleased Blake more than it had any right to, considering the name drawing had been random, and was an elegant, second-hand volume of Thucydides Blake had had his eye on for several months. Feeling as surprised and touched as Travis had looked, Blake asked, "How did you know?"

Avon smiled, the sharp brilliant flash of teeth that made Blake's heart turn over in his chest. "That would be telling," he said.

~*~

"I have never heard Travis sound so pleasant," Cally said.

"It was almost as though he were a human being," Soolin agreed drily. They were in the break room an hour and a half from closing time, Soolin with a cup of coffee, Cally with a pot of tea, and Blake with his feet up on a chair and Thucydides open in his lap.

"I'm pleased he liked it," Blake answered absently, and turned a page.

"It might be worth getting you two back together, if you being nice to him can make him that pleasant," Soolin added.

"Hmm?"

"Nothing, Blake," Cally said, and then to Soolin, "You weren't here when they were together, Soolin. It was not much better."

"Thank you, Cally," Blake said, with delicate irony.

"Travis has always been a bit…crazed. And Blake—"

"Excuse me, but perhaps you might not talk about me while I'm sitting here."

"What are we talking about?" Jenna asked, wandering in.

"When Blake and Travis were an item."

"Ah yes," Jenna said with a smile, and Blake sighed. "Back when Blake was a looney."

"Jenna, I am _sitting right_ —"

He was interrupted by Vila bursting through the door. "You'll want to come see this!" Vila said breathlessly, "There's a _woman_."

"There are a lot of women, Vila," Jenna said.

"There are three right now, in this very room," Soolin added.

"No, a woman talking to _Avon_."

Blake raised an eyebrow and then, as everyone hurried out the door after Vila, he set his book down and followed them. 

"You do realise," he asked a few minutes later, "that the five of us are huddled behind an underwear display, spying on Avon?"

"Shh!" said the other four, so Blake shrugged and gave up.

There was indeed a woman talking to Avon. She was tall and slight, dressed in an immaculately cut dove grey suit and skirt. Her hair was feathery, light brown, and brushed her shoulders. She had her back to them, but Vila helpfully described her.

"She's a _looker_. She came in and Avon went quieter than the grave and she walked right up and said hello. Nice voice, very soft. Avon asked if I wanted to take my break, and I pointed out I'd already had my break, and he near shoved me out from behind the counter, so I re-evaluated. What do you suppose they're talking about?"

"How can we tell from here?"

The woman stepped closer and laid a hand on Avon's arm, and Blake swallowed. He couldn't see Avon's expression, but Avon didn't pull back, even as she reached up and brushed her fingers across his cheek. He felt Jenna and Cally glance at him, and carefully ignored them.

In the next second the woman turned and left, throwing one last glance at Avon over her shoulder as she did so, and Avon turned back to the register. " _Floor manager to register one_ ," his voice called over the speaker. 

Vila jumped, and then shoved at Blake's shoulder. "Go on, then!" 

"Oh yes, this won't be obvious at all," Soolin murmured, as Blake stepped out from behind the underwear display and headed toward the registers. Avon, though, had been turned away, wrestling his coat out from under a pile of paper bags beneath register two, and therefore didn't see his rather compromising appearance.

"Yes?"

"Ah," Avon said, straightening and facing Blake. "A personal matter has arisen, may I leave early?"

"Er," said Blake articulately, and Avon raised his eyebrows. His expression was flat and closed, with none of the spark of humour which, Blake had always fancied, Avon usually saved for him.

"Yes, of course," Blake forced himself to say. "I'll have Gan cover your shift."

"Thank you." Avon nodded at him, shrugged on his coat, and vanished out the doors after his mysterious visitor. 

Blake watched him go, and then flipped on the speakers. " _Gan to register one, please_ ," he said.

~*~

Vila returned to his job as bagger and peppered Blake with questions until Gan, no doubt seeing Blake was about to snap, elbowed Vila in the arm.

" _Ow,_ " Vila said, and in the brief pause in which he turned an aggrieved stare on Gan, Blake spun on his heel and retreated to the break room. 

Thucydides sat on the table where he'd left it, and Blake looked at it for a self-pitying moment before sighing, picking it up, and sliding it into a free space along the cluttered counter, beneath his keys. The residual disappointment he felt was absurd—he and Avon had no kind of understanding, however much Blake would have liked one, the man was entitled to his own personal life, and Blake could still count him as a friend, which at the end of the day was more important than whether or not he was seeing someone else.

His heart tightened a bit, and he told it firmly to go stuff itself.

He shut himself in the office for the remainder of the evening, had a long and heated argument over the phone with Servalan about the state of their books and hiring policy, and lingered over paperwork as the Travises locked up and the building slowly emptied of employees. When he finally left to head home, he was surprised to find the car park not entirely empty: Avon was still there, standing beside a very sleek Lexus and arguing with the mystery woman. Blake walked to his own car, trying not to stare at them too obviously, and was sorting through his keys when the woman suddenly threw up her hands, marched around to the driver's side door, and vanished into the Lexus. She drove away, leaving Avon standing alone in the middle of the deserted lot.

Avon stared after her and then turned and caught sight of Blake, who had an odd impulse to duck behind his car and hide. It was absurd enough to make him laugh at himself and shake his head, and when he looked up again Avon had tucked his hands into his pockets and was walking over.

"Could I trouble you for a ride home?" he asked. In the light from the street lamps, his face was the picture of sardonic humour.

"Of course," Blake answered mildly, and then paused and considered. He didn't want to seem overly interested or to push Avon, but he was curious and if they were friends, there was no harm in asking whether everything was all right. "Problems?" he asked, inclining his head in the direction the Lexus had taken.

Avon's slight smile twisted. "Our partnership didn't end well."

Blake had found the right key at last, but he hesitated, frowning at Avon. In their admittedly short acquaintance, he'd never seen Avon look quite so bitter. "Grab a drink, if you like?" he offered, keeping his voice perfectly casual with a monumental effort. "I'll buy."

Avon opened his mouth—to refuse automatically, it looked like—and then his head tilted and he shrugged and said, "Why not?"

"Right, come on." Blake put his keys away, gestured toward the street, and took a deep breath as silently as he could. His pulse was racing.

~*~

"We were in business together," Avon said, when they were sitting side-by-side at the bar of a slowly filling pub. "Brandy," he told the barman, who'd paused in front of them with eyebrows raised.

"What kind, sir?"

"Surprise me," Avon said, voice grating a bit, and Blake winced. 

The barman turned to him and said, "Usual?" and Blake nodded.

"What kind of business?" he asked, when they were relatively alone again. A young woman took the seat to Blake's right, sending a waft of lilac scented perfume his way, and he turned to face Avon more fully, taking care to halt before their knees bumped.

"Banking," Avon said shortly. 

"Which bank?"

Avon waved his hand dismissively. "We were co-owners, working through a merger." He caught Blake's eyes and smiled, sharp and ironic. "It was the big one, Blake. It would have set us up for life. And it _did_ —for Anna." His brandy and Blake's pint were deposited in front of them, and Avon took his glass and knocked it back in one swallow. 

Blake nodded to the barman, who said, "That kind of day, is it?" and vanished to get another.

"She double-crossed me and took the company right out from under me. It was quite the master stroke, an admirable piece of business."

"Not the word I'd choose," Blake said mildly, around the index finger he'd begun to chew at without realising it.

"I admire competence," Avon said, nursing his second brandy more reasonably.

"And ruthlessness."

"That too." 

Avon's eyes flicked down to Blake's mouth, and Blake removed his finger hurriedly and picked up his glass. He took a sip and watched Avon, who had looked back down at his own drink.

"Well," Blake said. "Working retail is quite a leap from owning a bank."

"I didn't imagine she'd find me here," Avon answered vaguely, swirling the brandy gently around his glass. It was a surprising answer, and Blake guessed Avon hadn't meant it to be as telling as it was.

"What did she want this afternoon?" Blake asked, rather than point out that Avon had just essentially admitted to crawling away to lick his wounds in hiding. There was certainly nothing that said it wasn't the wiser course of action. He and Travis had continued working together out of stubbornness, but it hadn't done much but make everyone's lives more miserable, including their own. But Blake didn't imagine Avon would appreciate it if Blake tried to commiserate. He was a proud man, a quality that Blake found both irritating and attractive. 

Avon made a face, knocked back the rest of his second brandy, and caught the barman's eye like a magician. Blake wondered whether he ought to protest and decided in the next second that Avon was a grown man with a better knowledge of his own limits than Blake had.

"Nothing of importance," Avon said, and then as the barman began to pour his third brandy, added, "You might as well leave the bottle."

~*~

Blake argued Avon out of it eventually, though he didn't try to keep him from another two glasses. He finished his beer while Avon sipped his fourth brandy and told him about financial analysis and gave him an increasingly technical lecture on several business practices of varying degrees of underhandedness. Blake asked the barman for water, which Avon sneered at but drank, and then he started in on his fifth brandy and told Blake, elliptically, about his relationship with Anna. They'd met in her last year of school, he said, and she'd been dating someone else but neither of them had cared. She'd left the boyfriend eventually and gotten a place of her own and Avon had moved in, and then they'd gone into business together. And then she'd double-crossed him and he'd left. He'd managed to find a hellhole of a flat, he said, and a job that paid its rent, he added, with a nod to Blake, and he hadn't thought he'd ever see her again.

"So why did she drop by?" Blake asked again. Avon's speech had grown swifter the more he'd drunk, his words hardly slurring but his eyes skittering across every surface, his fingers twitching and hands gesticulating at every other point. His face was gently flushed and he'd turned so that his knee was pressed very firmly against Blake's, and his lips were looking slightly chapped because he licked them after each sip of brandy and Blake wanted to lean forward and hook his fingers into the hair at the base of Avon's skull and kiss him breathless.

"She wanted me to come back."

"To the bank?"

Avon laughed, a harsh bark that sounded half-mad. "No. She was very clear on that point. She wanted me to come back with her to her flat, and stay."

Half of Blake wanted to find this selfish woman and smack her. The other half, which had been quite busy for the last hour eyeing Avon up, couldn't fault her. Blake shook his head, trying to force his brain into behaving appropriately.

"I'm glad you didn't," he said without thinking, and then winced. He reached for his beer to cover the slip, only to find it empty, and decided it was probably just as well.

"Are you, Blake?" Avon asked, and Blake could hear the laugh in Avon's voice, the warmth and the emphasis. "And why is that?"

"Anyone deserves better than that," Blake answered honestly, trying to ignore the fact that Avon was very definitely flirting with him. "Certainly you do. And you're clever enough to know you do, so I'm glad you didn't do it."

"Hmm." Avon finished the last of his brandy, Blake watching his throat work out of the corner of his eye, and set the glass back down on the vacant beer mat. His hand dropped languidly from the counter to land on Blake's knee, and Blake allowed himself a heady vision of it travelling up his thigh before he reached down and removed it.

"Come on," he said, "let's get you home."

He slid off his barstool, shrugging on the coat he'd removed and lain across the counter beside him earlier, and just barely heard Avon whisper huskily, "All right," over the ambient noise. Blake looked up at him instinctively, and Avon caught hold of his face and brought their mouths together. His tongue slid past Blake's lips and his breath tasted of brandy and Blake wrapped his arms around Avon for balance. Avon moaned into the kiss and Blake tugged him closer to the edge of the stool, and Avon started to slip his knees around Blake's waist, and then a wet rag, smelling of stale beer and disinfectant, smacked into the sides of their faces.

"Take it outside, lovebirds," the barman said, and Blake, feeling flushed and irritated and aroused as hell, leaned down to retrieve it and toss it back at him.

"We're going, Bran," he promised, half pushing, half tugging Avon off his stool and steadying him when he overbalanced.

He kept his arms around Avon on their way back to the car, because it was bitterly cold and because Avon was unsteady on his feet. Avon didn't make another attempt at a snog, which Blake considered quite lucky, as his self-control wasn't as good as it ought to be. If Avon was unhappy enough about his ex's reappearance to go out and get pissed—and he obviously was—then Blake really _didn't_ want either to take advantage of him or to be his rebound. He did very much want to kiss Avon, though, and the rest of it was growing more and more difficult to remember as they stumbled up the street back toward Boucher's, and Blake's car.

Blake got the doors unlocked and Avon poured himself gracefully into the passenger seat, leaning his head back against the headrest and shutting his eyes. He opened them only once during the drive, glancing at the surrounding streets, and then shut them again.

"Where are we going, your flat or mine?" he asked.

Blake laughed a little. "Mine. I don't know the way to yours, and mine has central heating." 

He glanced over in time to see a small smile flit across Avon's face.

"Reasonable," Avon pronounced, and then was silent.

He'd fallen asleep, Blake found, when he'd parked and gone round the car to help Avon out. Avon woke easily enough and got himself up the stairs mostly under his own power, though getting them both through the door turned out to be more of a challenge. 

"What on earth is going on?" Deva asked from the kitchen table, where he was sitting with a glass of wine and his mobile, currently pressed to his chest to muffle the noise.

"Nothing much," Blake answered. 

Deva raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to get a better look at them, sending his copper hair flopping forward into his face. "This must be the famous Kerr Avon."

Avon raised his own eyebrows in response and shot Deva the sharpest smile in his repertoire. "Famous? Really, Blake?"

"This is my flatmate, Deva," Blake answered, locking the door behind them. "Is that Klyn?" he asked, and Deva nodded. "Say hello."

"Blake sends his love," Deva told the phone, and then said, "She sends hers back." 

"Deva's a polisci student," Blake told Avon, getting him another glass of water and pushing it into his hands when Avon tried to refuse it. "Klyn's his tutor, and also his girlfriend."

"Scandalous," Avon said with another grin. "I approve."

"You're a terrible influence," Blake said, unable to keep from smiling back.

"Mm," Avon answered, and then put a hand to Blake's chest, pushing him into the wall and crowding close. "I hope so."

"Avon," Blake said, with difficulty because Avon's tongue was in his mouth again, and then, "mm."

"She's giving him the usual hell, I think," came Deva's voice from the kitchen. "No, not at the moment, in fact. Necking in the hallway."

"Mm—Deva!" Blake called crossly, pushing Avon away. Avon laughed breathlessly and kissed along Blake's jaw instead.

"Klyn says to tell you 'congratulations,' Blake," Deva called back.

"Tell her to mind her own bloody business."

"You're in the middle of the hallway! You _could_ have chosen a less conspicuous spot."

"He's right," Avon murmured into Blake's hair, and then kissed at the skin beneath his ear.

" _You_ chose the spot," Blake protested, as his pulse jumped.

"True." Another kiss. "Bedroom?"

He'd planned to help Avon up and dump him into bed and let him sleep the alcohol off, while he himself took the couch like a responsible adult. His plan, Blake admitted to himself, was in utter ruins around him, and he gathered up its shredded remains with more than a little regret.

"Yes, but—" He was forced to pause as Avon kissed him again. "We shouldn't."

"Why not?" Avon whispered into his mouth, and Blake had to scramble to remember the answer.

"We've had too much to drink."

"You haven't."

"That doesn't help, Avon."

" _Scruples_ ," Avon said, as though it were a curse, but then he pressed one last kiss to Blake's mouth and let his head drop down to Blake's shoulder. Blake stood up against the wall, one arm around Avon's back and his other hand clutching at Avon's arm, catching his breath and listening to Deva chatting with Klyn and washing up on the other side of the wall. The room seemed to be spinning around him, and then Avon murmured "I will admit to being a bit dizzy" into Blake's jacket, and Blake had to laugh.

"Definitely best, then," he said.

"But I should warn you, Blake," Avon added, turning his face and biting gently at Blake's neck. "I'm going to be a right bastard in the morning."

"But would drunken sex tonight help keep you from a hangover tomorrow morning?" Blake asked, trying valiantly not to let his head thump back into the wall as Avon nosed up along his pulse.

"No," Avon answered, with a grin Blake could both hear in his voice and feel against his skin. "And this way, I'll be able to blame my bad mood entirely on you."

~*~

The next day was the first of Avon's weekend, which meant he could sleep in, waking up long enough only to groan and blame Blake for walking too loudly when his host snuck in to find clothes. Blake rolled his eyes and left him, not letting his gaze linger—much—on Avon's bare chest or the delicate drape of his arm across his eyes.

Deva, who was perhaps the most irritating and smug morning person Blake had ever met, was already up, dressed, and working his way through the paper and his second mug of tea by the time Blake emerged from the bathroom.

"Avon's still asleep," Blake told him, shrugging on his coat and snatching a slice of toast from the plate Deva pushed his direction. "You staying in today?"

"Heading out this afternoon, but I'll be here until then, yes." He let the newspaper drift slightly forward and looked up at Blake, a smile quirking the corners of his mouth. "Pleasant night?"

"Nothing happened," Blake pointed out.

"Yet." The smile turned into a full-blown, though friendly, smirk, and then Deva went back to the paper. "I'll cook him a fry-up if he likes."

"You're a saint."

"I'm aware. Have a nice day at work."

"Don't I always?" Blake muttered rhetorically, pulling the door shut behind him.

~*~

When he opened it again fourteen hours and fifteen minutes later, he found Avon and Deva chatting amiably, a bottle of wine and two glasses between them. Avon seemed to have plumbed the depths of Blake's wardrobe for spare clothes, and was lounging attractively across the sofa with his feet propped on the upside-down cardboard box which doubled as Deva's desk and the sitting room's coffee table.

"Good day at the office?" he asked idly.

"Not as awful as it could have been."

"How's Carnell?" Deva asked, refilling his glass with the last of the wine.

Blake sat on the sofa next to Avon, kicked off his shoes and propped his feet up on the edge of the cardboard box. "Smug git," he murmured, leaning his head back and shutting his eyes.

"Who, him or me?"

"Him," Blake said. "Though you are too, of course."

"Of course."

"Who's Carnell, then?" Avon asked.

"Oh," said Deva with relish, "have you two not met? You'd love him."

"You'd hate him," Blake corrected. "He's one of Servalan's chaps, he does the books. No matter how often I tell her we need at least _one_ more set of eyes checking the figures. And no," he continued to Deva, "he comes in Saturdays. Avon's got weekends off."

"Speaking of work," Avon said, removing his feet gracefully from the box and standing, "I have something to say to you, Blake. If you'd come with me?"

"All right." Blake stood with a groan and followed him out of the room to the hallway. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Deva raise his wine glass in an ironic-looking toast, and closed the door firmly on him.

Avon was standing halfway down the hall, feet splayed in an odd sort of parade rest, arms crossed over his chest. Blake moved to join him and Avon said, "I am handing in my resignation."

Blake stopped short in surprise. There were quite a few things he might have expected Avon to say—after their conversation last night, after the near-sex, after Avon spending the day at Blake's flat, wearing Blake's clothes and chatting with Blake's flatmate—but that wasn't any of them. It wasn't as though he'd expected Avon to stay at Boucher's forever, but he'd seemed happy enough, and now that he and Blake seemed to be…

He blinked and cleared his throat, resolving to hold judgement and the thread of panicked disappointment back until Avon told him more.

"Why?"

"A number of reasons. Amusing as it is to work with your merry band, I never had any intention of spending the rest of my days scanning dishware and high heels across a check-out register. It lacks flair." He grinned, and Blake shook his head. "And it lacks mental stimulation. I have greater ambitions."

"That's fair," Blake agreed.

"And," Avon added, taking a step forward and sliding his fingers along Blake's hip, "Recent experience has taught me it's never a good idea to shag the boss. The choice," he continued, pausing for a kiss, "between earning minimum wage," another kiss, "putting up with Vila nine hours a day," another, and Blake could feel him smiling against his lips, "five days a week," a fourth, "or doing something worthwhile with my time, earning a fortune doing it, and tumbling you into bed every evening—" Blake caught Avon's face as he began to pull away again, and kissed him properly. Avon's fingers flexed into Blake's hip, and he made a pleased, suggestive sound at the back of his throat that made Blake tug him closer still. They were both breathing heavily by the time Avon managed to escape and continue. "—is no choice at all."

"I can't argue there, although," Blake added, feeling compelled to argue the point even through the haze of contented lust that seemed to have fallen over him, "not _all_ office romances are doomed to failure, you know."

"Yes, but this one undeniably would be." At Blake's doubtful frown, Avon grinned and joked, "If nothing else, Travis would try to murder me, which would be both tiresome and embarrassing."

Blake chuckled. "All right, yes."

"Good." Avon kissed him one last time, a strong, quick press of lips, and then stepped back. "Consider this my official two weeks' notice, Blake."

"It's considered. Now you mentioned something about tumbling me into bed?"

"Every evening," Avon agreed, teeth flashing. "Once you're no longer my boss."

"I could fire you on the spot?" Blake offered. It came out sounding a bit more desperate than he'd meant it to.

"Just the touch my CV lacks, I'm sure."

"On the other hand, you can be sure I'll give you a glowing recommendation." Blake took a step forward, and Avon, expression wicked and eyes fixed on Blake's face, took one back.

"Just what line of work do you imagine I'll be applying for, Blake?"

"I'm sure you'd excel in any field." Blake took another step, and Avon allowed the distance between them to close marginally before taking another back.

"I'm a quick study," Avon agreed. "But if you'll remember, I mentioned mental stimulation as a necessity."

"That's true." Another step, one Avon didn't even bother to match. "I imagine if I make a joke about stimulation, you'll refuse to so much as kiss me, is that right?"

"Oh, undoubtedly," Avon murmured, before Blake caught him round the waist and drew him in. Avon's arms settled round his shoulders and he hummed appreciatively into Blake's mouth.

"The sex could be terrible," Blake said eventually, trying to catch his breath and keep his brain working. It wasn't easy. "Think how tragic if you left a steady job just to be with me and then we discovered—"

He had to break off to moan as one of Avon's hands left his shoulders to slide down his back and press their hips together.

"Somehow I don't think sex will be a problem," Avon answered, laughing and breathless himself. He twisted and pushed Blake up against the wall of the hallway, standing between Blake's splayed legs and letting his hands settle on Blake's thighs. His fringe was mussed and his eyes were dark and warm, and Blake felt a rush of fondness sweep through the desire, making his blood hum in his veins.

"But," Avon continued, "if you _are_ worried I suppose I could make an exception, just this once. After all, both of us are sober. I'm not in the throes of depression and your conscience is clear. I suppose I could be prevailed upon to take you to bed," his voice dropped, "and drive you wild."

"That would be very good of you," Blake said, and had to clear his throat when his own voice rasped into nothing. "A noble sacrifice."

"Oh, hardly a sacrifice at all," Avon answered flippantly, hooking his fingers between the buttons of Blake's shirts and tugging him toward the bedroom. "I love proving you wrong."


End file.
